3. The Colleges

The residential colleges are another feature of UCSC which continues to distinguish this campus from the vast majority of comparison institutions, particularly in the eyes of its undergraduate population. This is due, in large part, to their central role in the social and sometimes in the intellectual life of students outside the classroom and to the contribution they make to a distinctive campus culture. Although colleges were initially involved, alongside academic boards of studies, in the hiring and review of faculty, successive reorganizations restricted or eliminated their role in the personnel process. By 1985, their curricular functions had been largely limited to the first-year core courses, independent study courses, and individual majors. Colleges had become important centers of co-curricular and administrative activities primarily serving lower-division students.

COLLEGE ISSUES SINCE THE 1986 WASC REVIEW

The 1986 WASC review recommended that the campus re-examine the role of the colleges and attempt to strengthen the core courses which they offer. A variety of other pressures, internal and external, has also helped spur a series of studies, proposals, and changes over the past eight years. These include:

An annotated chronology of these events provides the context for understanding the current state of the college system at UCSC.

  1. In April 1986, soon after the last WASC visit, the Senate Committee on Educational Policy, which has jurisdiction over undergraduate curricula, produced a report on UCSC's core courses. Generally critical in tone, it noted a history of low participation on the part of ladder faculty which it attributed to the lack of an effective reward structure and to the tension between general educational objectives and the agendas of disciplinary boards of studies. Other problems to which the report pointed included the instability of core course funding (which relied upon soft monies that had to be renewed each year) and the incomplete integration of writing instruction and core course content. To some extent, the issues highlighted by the 1986 CEP report have proved to be ongoing. For example, in 1987-88, 15 of 110 core course sections were taught by ladder faculty, 35 by writing lecturers, and 60 by temporary lecturers and graduate students.
  2. In 1989, the campus adopted a new declaration-of-major process. This process originates in the colleges, where students are counseled about general education and university requirements. Courseloads and time-to-degree are more carefully monitored, and college approval is now required for double majors, minors, and extensions of enrollment. Together with the academic standing procedures instituted in 1985-86 (which affected academic probation, disqualification, and honors), the new regulations gave the colleges a larger role in tracking the academic progress of students.
  3. Also in 1989, the Chancellor initiated what turned out to be a two-year review of the colleges. The campus administration and Academic Senate both undertook exhaustive re-examinations of the college system in all its aspects. These parallel efforts culminated in a series of reports submitted and actions taken during the spring of 1991. The first of several key events was the April release of the report of the "CEP-CPB Joint Subcommittee on Intellectual and Cultural Life in the Colleges." Under the leadership of the chairs of the Committee on Educational Policy and the Committee on Planning and Budget, this report reaffirmed the colleges' role as foci of student life, advising, and intellectual community on campus. It recommended that all faculty and lecturers, as well as graduate and undergraduate students, affiliate with one of the eight colleges. It also proposed an expanded curricular role for the colleges through the institution of new courses carrying between one and three credits rather than five, which faculty members would teach in addition to their normal load. Senate discussion and a subsequent mail ballot, conducted in May 1991, won approval for a slightly modified form of the subcommittee's recommendations, allowing this additional service to be contributed in either the faculty member's college or board.

    It is as yet difficult to assess the success of this initiative. The academic year 1992-93 was to be the first in a three-year cycle during which each faculty member would offer a one- to three-credit course or equivalent service. Because that service might take place at any point during those nine quarters and might be offered under the auspices of either a college or a board, it has been difficult to monitor compliance systematically. Anecdotal evidence suggests great variability in the approach adopted and in the results achieved by different colleges. At one extreme, two colleges have embarked upon ambitious programs of "complementary course" development, instituting supplemental seminars for first-year core course and general education requirements. These have, in some cases, been undertaken in conjunction with the organized research activities of faculty affiliates of the college. At the other end of the continuum, some colleges have encouraged faculty members to make their additional service available through their boards of studies, and have concentrated college-specific efforts on mounting complementary events in connection with the core course or on bringing in guest lecturers whose presence supports the disciplinary concerns of the boards housed in the college.

    With only one year of the cycle completed at the time of this writing, there are grounds for concern. As might be expected, the response of ladder faculty has not been uniform. In fact, some feel that faculty involvement in all college activities is decreasing even though faculty affiliation is now required. It has even been reported that some new faculty have been counseled not to participate in college-sponsored teaching or other activities. In addition, if workload and political pressures associated with the state's budget crisis lead to increases in faculty courseloads, this is likely to restrict the advantage that the colleges hoped to gain through the Senate resolutions. In effect, a faculty member who is prevailed upon to teach an additional five-credit course by his or her board of studies may simply count that course as fulfillment of the one - three credit service requirement. To the extent that such decisions are generalized, this opportunity for the enlargement and enhancement of college curricula will be lost.
  4. In 1990, the college core courses were placed on a more solid fiscal basis when the Academic Vice Chancellor specifically set aside a pool of funds drawn from faculty FTE to fund this instructional effort on a more permanent basis. These funds have not been sufficient to protect core courses from the budgetary pressures, leading to some increase in section size (from an average of twenty to twenty-four). Still, these resources have reduced or eliminated the delays and uncertainties that previously impeded the organization of core courses due to the temporary nature of their funding.
  5. In 1991, there was a major administrative reorganization of the colleges. Under the pre-existing structure, college bursars reported to provosts, who in turn reported to the Chancellor. After a transition period, a new, dual structure emerged. Now the newly titled College Administrative Officers, who have primary responsibility over non-academic activities, report to the Vice Chancellor for Student Services. Provosts (i.e., faculty members who remain the chief academic officers in the colleges) report to the newly created Associate Academic Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education. During 1992-93, this position, renamed the Associate Academic Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Affairs, was made full-time and given a much expanded roster of responsibilities which precludes direct involvement in or detailed oversight of the intellectual activities taking place in the colleges.

    This administrative reorganization of the colleges was also intended to make possible a clarification and reorganization of college budgets. Roughly $425,000 per year of instructional funds, which had flowed over time into functions or positions that were only partially academic, were withdrawn from the colleges. The algorithm (the "Musgrave formula") that had formerly determined the level of funding for individual colleges was abandoned in favor of a base-level allocation with a minimal incremental supplement of $5 per student.

    The budget reorganization in 1991 has had major financial and staffing impacts on the colleges. While it successfully realigned staff function with fund source in a consistent way among all eight colleges, the overall reduction in FTE and support funds resulted in some reduction of services to students, and produced an even greater reliance on housing and gift funds to sustain college-sponsored programs. For example, some libraries and photo labs have been curtailed in order to retain more vital aspects of college service. On the other hand, a campus policy adopted since the last WASC review calling for the decentralized delivery of computer services has led to the establishment of new facilities at Oakes, Merrill, and College Eight (with another planned for Cowell/Stevenson), sometimes with the help of outside funding sources.

    In general, the fiscal crisis of the university, which has coincided with the budgetary reorganization of the colleges, has greatly complicated efforts to assess current funding patterns in the colleges and to discern their long-term implications. To assist with financial support, the colleges have been paired with a development officer and asked to prepare proposals suitable for outside funding.
  6. One further event crowded into the highly charged spring quarter of 1991 was a new CEP report on the core courses. This one adopted a far more positive tone than its 1986 precursor. Citing the 1985 WASC Accreditation Report as one spur to its reconsideration of these issues, the Committee distributed questionnaires, reviewed student evaluations, and examined course materials in its effort to evaluate the quality of college core offerings. Like the 1986 report, it acknowledged a low level of faculty participation in these courses, but it placed a very different interpretation on this situation. The report, in fact, argued against reliance on large faculty lectures and in favor of the smaller sections, typically taught by lecturers or graduate students, in which it found that "the most important and most successful results of the college core courses are accomplished." In short, the report urged that these courses continue along the path already established.

The past two years have been a period of adjustment to and consolidation of the flurry of administrative, budgetary, and substantive changes undertaken during 1990 and 1991. Despite a number of outstanding issues, the campus remains committed to realizing future growth in its complement of undergraduate students through the construction of new colleges. Here too, however, the budget crisis has had its impacts. During the past year, ground was broken for Colleges Nine and Ten. Because growth in the student body has for the moment been halted, the campus administration decided to construct only the academic core buildings and to postpone the student housing originally planned as part of this project.

This decision was complicated by such contradictory factors as the prospect of rapid increases in the college-age population of the state, the fact that the operating and capital budgets of the university proceed independently of one another, the requirement that all campus housing facilities be financially self-supporting, and the potential for the "downsizing" of UC if the budget crisis continues. Nonetheless, the possibility currently exists that UCSC will, by the end of this decade, build academic facilities for Colleges Nine, Ten, and Eleven (to house the boards of Anthropology, Economics, Education, Environmental Studies, and Psychology) without the student residential component that the college model so clearly calls for. While this situation is not without precedent (College Eight operated for many years without its own student facilities, and the Natural Sciences faculty has typically interacted with students outside the college context from the time of the campus's creation), it would present a challenge to accepted notions of how a college functions and will guarantee that the next review period will see a continued evolution and redefinition of the role of colleges on this campus.

Another novel element is that in the new colleges, faculty from just one to three boards of studies will be physically represented. This raises questions concerning how to create a college identity (separate from disciplinary orientations) for faculty and whether strong skews in student preferences for affiliation (along the lines of undergraduate majors) will develop.

One other recommendation in the previous WASC review that indirectly concerned the colleges was "that the University continue to make special and deliberate efforts, not in just one or two colleges, but centrally visible to recruit effectively, support fully, and retain students from ethnic minorities." Although this is covered in the section on diversity, it should be noted here that a new configuration has developed in the colleges vis-a-vis minority students. This is primarily due to the fact that, as a recruiting strategy, students in affirmative action categories are given their first choice for college affiliation and a guarantee of four years of housing. Thus, the concentration of affirmative action students varies depending on such factors as the type and newness of the housing facilities. Most colleges are responding by developing new activities and programs to support their changing student clientele and by augmenting the curriculum in their core courses. Also, a few of the one- to three-credit courses have focused on questions revolving around race and ethnicity. These courses have been successful both in meeting students' needs and complementing the general education "E" (ethnic) requirement.

As this section has perhaps made clear, in the past eight years a considerable number of studies have been conducted and a mass of information assembled concerning the colleges at UCSC. As part of this process of self-assessment, many thoughtful recommendations have been advanced and a few major reforms have been implemented. In short, the college system continues to stir controversy and to undergo change.

This ongoing ferment is driven by divisions of opinion among the faculty and between the faculty and students concerning the proper role of the college system. While some faculty members still see colleges offering the opportunity to interact with colleagues across departmental and divisional lines or to reinvigorate the ideal of a liberal education, others view them as distractions from or impediments to the university's primary responsibility for disciplinary and interdisciplinary education and for scholarly research. At the same time, there is ample evidence that the colleges remain one of the campus's great attractions to prospective students and a positive force in shaping undergraduates' perceptions of what makes UCSC distinctive and desirable. It seems unlikely that the great divergence in views of this institution's college system will soon disappear.